Ben Murphy
Sports Scene
The Dow varsity tennis team took third place in last year’s state championship, but seventh-year head coach Garrett Turner returns only five members from that squad.
Returning to the team that was regional and Saginaw Valley League champions are seniors Kelli Close (no. 2 singles), Allie Vickery (no. 4 singles), and Patricia Bartlett (no. 1 doubles); junior Camila Luciano (no. 1 doubles); and sophomore Julie Cross (no. 2 doubles.) One of the team’s top players from a year ago, Christina Auyeung, is not playing for the Chargers this season.
New to the team are senior Jessica Oh (no. 4 doubles); juniors Amanda Bone (no. 3 doubles), Angela Dobrzelwski (no. 3 doubles), and Bridget Bush (no. 4 doubles); and freshmen McKenna Root (no. 1 singles), Elaina Parrilo (no. 3 singles), Nicole Dobrzelwski (no. 2 doubles), Cindy Tae (no. 5 doubles), and Joyce Chu (no. 5 doubles).
The coach has guarded optimism for the season.
“We expect to win the conference and regional and place high in the state,” Turner said. “We expect to improve over the course of the season, as we have many girls that have not played tennis before.”
So far, the Chargers are 3-0 on the season. They placed second at the Rochester Invitational on April 21, finishing runner-up to second-ranked Port Huron Northern.
With the critical part of the season looming, the coach hopes his young team can continue its solid play.
“We need to continue to work hard in practice and take every match as a learning experience to improve on,” Turner said “We are a very inexperienced team, but we have a lot of athleticism and a team full of hard workers with good attitudes.”